The business and culture of our digital lives, from the L.A. Times

Virtual campus tours courtesy of Google

January 11, 2012 | 2:10
pm

What's more you? The breezy Spanish style architecture of Stanford University or the gothic buildings dripping with history at the University of Glasgow?

Now high school seniors can get that all important "feel" for a college campus without having to embark on the traditional time-consuming and expensive multi-stop college tour. On Wednesday, Google announced it has more than tripled the number of university partners that participate in its Street View Program, allowing parents and students to imagine strolling along the Charles River at Boston University or enjoying the sunshine at Wesleyan University's Foss Hill, right on the computer.

The number of colleges and universities that have participated in Google's Street View Program is still fairly limited -- Google's updated list includes 27 colleges and universities in the U.S., 40 in Japan, two in Canada, two in Denmark, 10 in Great Britain and 11 in Taiwan.

"As for adding additional campuses to Street View in the future, we hope to continue to make this type of imagery available on an ongoing basis," said a Google spokeswoman. "Since beginning this project, we've gotten a great deal of interest from potential partners."

In order to virtually tour the colleges that have participated in Google's Partner program, you go to maps.google.com and put the name of the college or university in the search bar. Grab the little orange man on the left side of the screen and drag him to the university destination and start exploring.

To see how Google got the imagery in the first place, check out the video below.